Circle launches USDC smart contract support for BlackRock BUIDL holders

Stablecoin issuer Circle has implemented smart contract support for investors of the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL). 

The move provides an off-ramp for BUIDL holders, allowing them to transfer their shares to Circle for USDC -0.0021% , according to a release issued Thursday. 

"USDC enables investors to move out of tokenized assets at speed, lowering costs and removing friction," said Circle Co-Founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire in a statement. "We're thrilled to provide this functionality to BUIDL investors and deliver the core benefits of blockchain transactions via USDC availability to investors."

BlackRock previously invested in Circle's $400 million funding round in April 2022, which led to a partnership between the firms. By November 2022, Circle announced plans to place some of its USDC reserves in a BlackRock-managed money market fund. 

BlackRock's fund

BlackRock, the world's largest asset management firm, launched BUIDL on Ethereum last month. BUIDL is a tokenized liquid fund that invests in U.S. Treasury bills, among other things, and has its own token of the same name. Within its first week, BUIDL amassed $160 million in inflows and had $288 million as of April 11, according to Etherscan data. 

BlackRock tapped Securitize, a token security issuance platform, to "provide qualified investors with the opportunity to earn U.S. dollar yields by subscribing to the Fund through Securitize Markets," the investment manager wrote in a release. 

BlackRock maintains over $10 trillion in assets under management as of January 2024. The firm also issues IBIT, one of the 11 spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved on Jan. 11, 2024. 

USDC maintains 28.9% of the total Ethereum stablecoin supply as of April 10, The Block's Data Dashboard shows. It's second only to Tether's USDT, which holds 55.7% of the total supply.